User blog:Vance Clark/Unexpected Discovery
March 12th, 2017. A few days had passed since Vance last left the outpost. Since his last venture, he’d gained a decent amount of wealth and thus ammunition which he’d purchased. That ammunition came in quite handy during the defence of the outpost. Nearly each night the infected attempted to plague the outpost where all the survivors had made their homes; and each time Vance did his part to defend this place from the scourge of the undead. Did pretty well too, and for the first time Vance felt like he had a purpose beyond himself, protecting those who could not protect themselves while risking his own life at the front lines. However, with all his bravery, he was not paid for his assistance, and it was now time to go seeking more wealth. Vance was running low on ammo, and his stomach had been growling at him for two days. Taking his chances with very little ammo on him, he left behind his USP and his AK5 in the office suite he claimed as his own, and headed for the mercenary jobs building. There were a few high paying jobs, but nothing he really wanted to attempt with just a combat knife. Deciding “To hell with it,” he headed through the front gate, picking up a wooden board with a couple nails in it he found along the way, and ventured back into the city. After walking a couple blocks with no zombies yet to stop Vance, he looked around with a couple of directions he could take, and pondered to himself where he should go to look for some unspoiled food, money, and hopefully some ammo. Having left behind all his guns and ammo, he had plenty of pocket space to carry stuff in, and didn’t intend to head back to the outpost until he was either being chased by too many zombies that he could handle, or until he couldn’t carry any more. Vance took this moment while deciding where to go to take a look at his situation and come up with a plan: He had a viable club with a nail in it, and a combat knife. It’s bright daylight out, not much in the way of noise so he could easily be heard if he made any himself, and there was a brisk wind that would make the scent of any living being travel. So he had two options; attempt to walk the streets quietly and hope he doesn’t fart, sweat, or make any noises, and hope he doesn’t give off BO; or he could attempt to travel by passing through buildings and the alleyways between them. Either plan is risky, but one at least has a decent chance of getting pretty far without being noticed, so long as there aren’t a bunch of zombies waiting in the random buildings he happens to go through. So he decided to go with the latter plan. Vance looked around a bit, and randomly picked a building to enter. Sticking with stores and storage buildings, which likely have back exits into alleyways, he started traversing from room to room, building to building. Watching every nook and cranny carefully, watching his steps, and keeping a keen eye on every shadow movement he sees, Vance managed to travel to what he thought was quite a ways without drawing any attention to himself what so ever. Unfortunately he didn’t bother to search for food, money, or ammo while he doing so, but for good reason. Logically, all the places closest to the outpost had to have been searched by survivors before, so Vance didn’t want to waste time and possibly get noticed by hungry zombies by searching rooms that were likely empty of all goods. After passing through many buildings, Vance eventually began to get rather deep into the city. He didn’t know exactly how far he was, since the most of what he’d seen of the streets were the small amount visible from the alleyways between each building, but his internal clock told him he’d been sneaking through buildings for a few hours now. Taking into account how much more hungry Vance was getting, to the point of starving, and sounds outside of zombies moaning in the distance, and even some gunshots from other adventuring survivors, he had a pretty good guess that he was getting kind of deep. He decided to take some time searching for food and money in the next building he entered. Lucky for Vance, the next building was a convenience food store. Many isles made of shelves with food and other perishables made up most of the store, freezers lined the back wall with power still supplied to them, and cash registers spanned much of the front of the store. Although there was power flowing to the freezers at the back of the store, the lights were all out, and the store was rather dark. The only light in this building was from the freezers at the back, and the windows at the front. There were many windows, almost covering the entire wall aside from the double doors. All in all, with the way the building was set up on the inside, about 80% of the building was nearly pitch black, and 10% on either side lit up from the two light sources. None of the windows nor the doors were boarded up, so that left Vance with very little protection in here, other than the concealment of the shelves and other displays. He didn’t bring any tools and only had the one plank of wood on him as a weapon, so boarding the place up wouldn’t work unless he had help. Vance started out by squinting and looking around carefully to see if there were any infected directly within his visual range. None; so far so good. The floor was hard to see, but the shiny surface reflected what little light there was, enough that Vance could see where he was going and if there was anything on the floor he might stumble into. There was no glass or anything else on the floor he might accidentally step on and make noise, and other than a product or two laying about where they’d originally fallen, Vance didn’t have much trouble with his footing. He crept carefully towards the back wall of the store, trying to stay in the shadows, while keeping his eyes in the shadows he was heading towards, as well as on the source of the light from the back wall. Zombies are incredibly confusing sometimes, and you never know where they may be lurking. There could be one in the back corner in the shadows, directly where Vance was heading, or there could be one clear as day standing around in front of the freezers. No matter what, Vance had to be careful. The last thing he wanted was to be caught this soon. Having to fight his way out of this building would most definitely make his presence known, and that’s exactly what he didn’t want to do. Now in the back corner of the store, on the side that he entered through, Vance had a clear view of whatever is or isn’t in front of the freezers. Anywhere in the shadows, or within the isle, he could not see, but now having his back up against that corner, at least he knew there couldn’t be anything behind him. When it comes to being more or less unprepared for large-scale combat, knowing your flank is safe is the most calming thing you can feel. No longer able to move backward, it was time to move forward. Ahead of him Vance could not see anyone or anything in front of the freezers; good, but there could still be a zombie lurking within the isles. So Vance made his way closer to the front of the store, and one by one he carefully looked down each isle, using the freezers as his backlight so he could see if there were anyone or anything between him at the one end of the isles, and the freezers at the back. Playing it extra careful, he crept though the shadows to the other side of the store. And after all this careful-business, Vance had looked everywhere in the store and didn’t find a single zombie. He thought to himself, “Well, that was a good waste of time,” and proceeded back to the back of the store. Looking over the freezers in front of him, he could only begin to wonder how he’d gotten so lucky, as each freezer had a tonne of frozen food in them. They weren’t packed to the brim, but they had more than he could need for a long while. It was almost too good to be true, and as Vance started filling up his backpack with many kinds of frozen food, it turned out ‘too good to be true’ was exactly what this was. Vance felt the barrel of a gun wide enough to be a shotgun pointed at the back of his head, and a female voice was heard. “Put your hands where I can see them, and drop the knife.” Vance did as he was told, and slowly started to stand up from the floor. As he got up on one knee, she pushed the gun at his head. “I didn’t say get up!” Vance stopped, and felt her tug on the backpack which he was holding in his right hand. He let go, and put both his hands on his head. “What did you plan to do with these? Just steal my supplies and leave, likely attracting zombies here in the process?” Vance remained quiet as she questioned him. Her voice didn’t sound English, and he could guess she was Japanese from the way she sounded, like someone who’d learned English as a second language. She wasn’t very good at it however, like she hadn’t had much time to perfect it. “I’m not going to ask you a second time. If we make too much noise it’ll give away out position to the zombies outside.” She sounded indeed worried, and Vance chose now to answer. He whispered, “I’m here gathering supplies, but didn’t know these belonged to anyone.” “Where did you come from?” She stuttered, and sounded a bit rushed to ask. “The outpost.” “What is that? I’m not familiar with that word.” “It’s a base, a safe-haven for all survivors.” She suddenly raised her voice a bit, but not quiet shouting, “Survivors? There aren’t any! There’s no one else alive but me and my brother. This must be some sort of trick! Where’d you come from?!” She seemed to be disturbed by this information, as if disbelieving but wanting to believe. Vance turned around slowly and put his hand on the barrel of her shotgun, and lowered it down. “Look at me. I’m not infected. You’re not imagining my being here. I’m as real and as healthy as you are..” Tears came to her eyes and she grabbed Vance as he said this, and hugged him very tight, crying a bit over his shoulder. Vance’s stomach decided to break the silence as it grumbled loudly between them. “Listen, I won’t lie, I came here for myself. I didn’t know this store was here, nor did I know how much food was here, but I’m searching for food, some cash, and ammo. But while I came here for selfish reasons, there are a whole lot of people who are hungry, perhaps even hungrier than me, and I haven’t eaten in more than two days.” At this, she broke the hug, and almost ignoring part of what he just said, she handed him the bag and picked up his knife and gave it to him, then grabbed him by the hand and pulled him to follow her. “Come this way, quickly. I want you to meet my brother, and we’ll make you something to eat.” Vance followed her into the cold storage area of the store. The walls in here were lined with shelves with various things on them, but most of which were not food. Obviously this part of the store used to be for storing food, but now it’s been made liveable. There was a hand-built wood stove with a pot on top of it and some logs underneath burning with a warm light. In the corner of the room there were a couple of sleeping bags, one empty the other hand someone lying in it, either sleeping or to keep warm. The woman lit an oil lamp and stoked the fire to make it burn brighter. She opened a frozen dinner package and put its contents into the pot and it started to sizzle. While cooking some food for Vance, the woman had her back turned to him and the person who was probably her brother in the sleeping bag. “So what’s your name?” She asked. “Vance. Yours?” “Aiko. And that’s my little brother, Ren.” Vance looked over to the sleeping boy, only able to see his hair from here. “Don’t mind him, he’s probably resting. He spends a lot of the day sleeping to try and forget his worries.” Vance sat there quietly while the woman cooked him up something to eat. After ten or fifteen minutes, maybe a little more, she put the food onto a styrofoam plate and handed it to Vance, who thanked her with a nod and gobbled it up quickly, mainly because he was starving, but also to keep the smell of the warm food from traveling. He finished eating quickly, and Aiko was cleaning up the mess from cooking that meal. “So you’re going to take my brother and I to this outpost, right? Bring us safely there to where the others are?” She assumed a lot, still with her back to Vance, and ignoring his original reason for being here. “Sure, I guess.” Vance replied. Curiosity got the better of him, and he leaned over and lightly put a hand on the shoulder of the sleeping boy. For the amount of noise between the two of them talking, Vance was surprised the boy slept so still like that. Placing his hand on him, he felt no warmth from the boy’s shoulder, and didn’t take much for Vance to roll the boy onto his back, having been on his side. As a horrifying turn of events, Vance could clearly see that this boy looked long since dead, and his body was chilled within this room to the point of keeping him from rotting and stinking up the place. In a bit of shock, Vance quickly removed his hand from the boy’s body, and returned to sitting straight where he had been while he was eating. Aiko continued to talk, with no idea what had happened behind her back. “We don’t have much that we want to bring with us, other than food and supplies that we’ll help you carry, so we can leave right away.” That poor girl.. She mustn’t have had any idea of what has become of the person lying in that sleeping bag. Or if she did, the knowledge of it must be suppressed within her mind. Vance thought frantically of how to deal with this situation. “Uh.. yes, that’s a good idea. We wouldn’t want to stay here too long. We should leave right away!” Vance stood up and put his backpack over his back. He also picked up her shotgun, a Washington 870, and slung it over his other shoulder. He did this not only to hasten their leaving, but also because he didn’t want her to have a weapon on-hand if things go badly here. Aiko turned around as Vance took her shotgun. She nodded in agreement to him doing this, even without truly knowing his reason for it. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. You can use that, and I’ll use this.” She pulled a Webster 1942 out of a box on the shelf, and pulled the box off the shelf while she was at it. Vance moved closer and looked inside, and it was full of ammo. The box itself was about a foot long in each direction, and a little less than a foot tall with the flaps folded down at the sides, and contained all kinds of rounds. Vance would have to dump them out and count them all to know exactly how many and what kinds are in there. She pulled out a handful of .38 handgun rounds and loaded her magnum, and handed Vance the box. “Here, reload that gun.” Vance checked the shotgun only to find it was completely empty. After all that happened, she couldn’t have even shot him with it earlier. He didn’t need to take her orders or anything. But oh well, too late now. Vance pulled some 16 gauge shells out of the box and loaded the shotgun. After cocking it, he watched as Aiko walked over to where her brother was ‘sleeping’, and knew if there were ever a time for something to go wrong, this was it. She nudged him a bit lightly with her foot. “Wake up, Ren, it’s time to go. This nice man is going to take us somewhere safe.” Ren did not move nor reply, of course. “Ren, get up, we gotta go!” She nudged him a bit more, and Vance put his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s just go, Aiko. Let your brother sleep in peace.” She resisted. “NO! I’m not leaving without my brother!” She rolled him over onto his back like Vance did earlier, and shook him with both hands. “Aiko! We can’t stay here any longer! It’s too late for him, just leave him!” Things were getting stressful, and Vance was out of options, as was apparently Aiko. “How can you say that? You’re an evil man! How can you say we have to go but want to leave a poor child behind?!” Vance raised his voice a bit. “Aiko, get a hold of yourself. Your brother has been dead for some time. It’s best not to move him. He’ll just be a burden on us.” “NO!!” Aiko pulled out of Vance’s grasp and moved back from him, appearing frightened and scared, threatened by the idea of leaving behind her brother, and apparently completely oblivious to him being dead. “I won’t leave him behind!” She shouted. Just then, sounds of zombies were heard over the two of them. There were lots of them outside the store, and beginning to head inward. Aiko gasped, and backed herself into a corner, holding her magnum in both hands, and shaking rapidly. Vance closed the box and shoved it into his bag, then closed the big steel doors to the cold storage room and barred the door with the blank he brought with him. “That’ll keep them from getting in here.” He whispered, “As long as we don’t make too much noise, they won’t know where we are. We should be safe in here till they leave.” Vance turned around to see Aiko sitting on the floor in the corner, with the magnum pointed upwards and in her mouth. She was shaking unbelievably and out of control, and Vance, in shock, attempted to get to her to stop her. “Aiko, don’t!” But it was too late. She pulled the trigger, and it made a light click sound.. Apparently something was wrong with her gun. From the sound of it, the rammer was probably missing, and so the gun wouldn’t fire. Aiko attempted to fire several times, each time getting that same small click. She dropped the gun between her legs and began to sob. Vance knelt next to her and looked her in the eyes. “Aiko, is there a back exit out of this cold storage room? Some way we could get out of here without them knowing?” She shook her head, looking down at the floor with a look of hopelessness on her face. She attempted to wipe her tears away but couldn’t stop crying or sniffling. Vance looked around the room and found a bottle of alcohol on one of the shelves, but no visible exit other than the way he got in there. Aiko continued to sob, and with the zombies closing in, Vance had to do something. “I’m sorry, but this is for your own good.” He’d poured some alcohol onto a cloth and placed that over her mouth and nose. It didn’t take long for her to pass out from that, and Vance breathed a heavy yet calm sigh now that he’d stopped the source of noise in this room. He sat next to the unconscious Aiko with the shotgun ready, and listened to the zombies outside that door, remaining quiet and hoping, praying, that they wouldn’t find them in there. Category:Blog posts